


The Sea and the Sky

by QuothTheSeagull



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Erotic Poetry, F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Injury Recovery, Inspired by Fanart, Major Character Injury, Permanent Injury, Poetry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 03:19:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuothTheSeagull/pseuds/QuothTheSeagull
Summary: A set of eight love poems about Mercy and Pharah, sticking together through thick and thin.





	1. A Sunday in April

**Author's Note:**

> This one's a bit older. Inspired by some fanart I saw before I bought the game.
> 
> Think the ship I support the most now is Reaper76 just because of the immense potential for drama, but Phamercy still catches my attention.
> 
> All of the pieces/chapters are from Mercy's POV except the last one.

The clouds spread their protective wings  
Over the earth, sprinkling its benediction  
Onto fields, springs, and ponds,  
Shielding the land and water  
From the harsh eye of the sun  
And casting bejewelled embellishments  
Across new life in blossom,  
Drumming its soft rhythm  
On nature’s xylophones.

The lotuses in the pond  
Of our back garden  
Open their petals  
To the pleasant gray of overcast,  
Muted shades beautiful  
Where more scintillating colors  
Full of fickle promise  
Have fled, nowhere to be seen.

Our first intimacies, too,  
Were shared under April rains  
With the quiet elegance  
Of water gardens and lotus blossoms,  
Stories of foolishness and innocent passion,  
Times of laughter, times of tears,  
Times of things not found  
In country fair market-stalls,  
Of empty-handed returns  
To the Occident,  
Where tentative lovers  
Waited with the setting sun,  
Disappointment creeping in with the darkness  
Until they slipped away with the night,  
Leaving lessons learned  
But not appreciated  
Until time softened their blows.

Our first affirmations  
Took place in summer downpour—  
You threw pebbles at my window  
To catch my attention,  
Standing like Michael Furey  
Transposed across years and seasons,  
Drenched, and soaked through.  
Your offer of matched rings,  
Equal triplet bands  
Of peened gold and cassiterite,  
Appreciative of our natures  
More than adamant brilliance  
Ever will be,  
Did not stop my admonition  
For you to remember your umbrella  
Lest you catch your death of cold.  
Yet as we shared our hot shower,  
We washed away those petty trifles  
And kissed and touched as equals,  
Luxuriating in the warm shine  
Of the other’s contours  
And the rings on our fingers—  
I have never taken it off since,  
And neither have removed  
The band which joined it  
Four months later.

The wind falls still, leaving the rain  
To continue its soft cadence  
Alone.

Sunday afternoons  
Have always been a strange time,  
Swirling with wants unsatisfied  
Settling into dispassion  
For the toil of the week to come,  
Dashed with the ennui  
From knowing there is no more time.  
Even replenishing rains  
Make this time leaden,  
Keeping us sheltered  
And apart from its beauty.  
In our time together we learned  
To make these listless hours  
Ones to savor simple companionship  
In the warmth of each other’s arms,  
And neither sunshine nor rain  
Feels far away  
With your hands in mine,  
Our hearts beating in unison  
A deep thrumming undertone  
To the song of the world,  
Our personal droughts  
Quenched in fulfillment.

If I call to you now,  
What will you hear  
In that far-away desert?  
The downpour nourishes our garden  
But I must enjoy it apart,  
Confined with my longing  
In a lodge meant for two,  
Waiting for you, and the deluge to follow.

Distance magnifies with longing,  
And in the season when lotuses bloom again  
The warm rain nourishes flowers  
And feeds longing alike, making the leagues  
Separating us from our embrace  
Feel as vast as oceans.

The rain keeps pouring,  
And my tears flow free  
In the joys of the season,  
Made bittersweet by your absence.


	2. Strange Places

Here I stand,  
Solitary in a sanitized,  
Emotionless place  
Too open for privacy,  
But too small for the hopes  
Of the waiting.

An airport and a hospital  
Are much alike,  
Because one mistake is too many.

The difference  
Stands in my familiarity  
With gurneys and IV lines,  
Scalpels and syringes,  
Charts, codes, diagnoses both  
Mundane and dramatic,  
Troubling, comforting,  
Offering relief, concern,  
Puzzlement, fear,  
Despair, contemplation,  
Reconciliation, peace.  
Wielding knowledge in one hand  
And kindness in the other,  
Clasping both together  
Hoping one will not overwhelm  
Its counterpart, count and number  
The hours, the days,  
The people,  
All coming and going.  
Holding direction in the middle of it all,  
Moving from one to the next  
Crisply, with no hangups  
Because there is no time.

I am not at home  
With the strangeness of this place,  
With its control towers and concourses,  
Radars and beacons,  
Timetables and abbreviations  
Tantalizing and obscure,  
Taxiways, cars, and carts  
Delineated by their separate existence  
From the conveyances and potholes  
Of the highways outside the fences,  
Offering knowledge of function  
But no organic appreciation,  
Serving a larger enigma  
Of turbo fans and wingtip vortice-breakers,  
Streamlines and flush rivets,  
A perfect combination  
Of knowing just enough  
To know how horribly  
Things can go wrong,  
Having control over nothing.  
Faced with this impenetrable counterpart,  
I can only count and number  
The hours, the minutes,  
The people,  
All coming and going,  
Holding direction in the middle of it all  
Moving from one to the next  
In confusion, hung up on worries  
Because there is too much time.

Strange and discomfiting also  
Are the quietude which has descended  
Upon our home, picking apart vibrance  
And leaving only shadows;  
The bed too wide for one person  
And blankets too cold to hold  
When I turn in the night,  
Seeking the warmth of your presence;  
The friendly voices exchanged  
Making the homeward journey  
Seem less tedious by its mere anticipation,  
Hands kneading shoulders  
Bearing the accumulated weights  
Of vernacular existence,  
Ears willing to listen  
To complaints major and minor,  
Anxieties momentous or trifling,  
Troublesome all the same  
To knowledge and emotion alike.  
All of these small struggles  
Now grow and hound my steps  
Wearing me thinner and thinner,  
Until like a fledgling falcon  
Fallen among the wolves,  
I cry out for you to swoop in  
And rescue me.

At least I can take comfort  
Knowing you will be with me very soon,  
But being alone with my thoughts  
In a strange place  
Sets my mind to contemplating  
The mistakes that can happen,  
Uncontrolled compulsion  
Imagining everything that can go wrong,  
Madness of solitude for a psyche  
Dedicated ever to the next course of action,  
Obsessed with plans and details  
And fretting endlessly  
When there are none.

Knowing nothing  
Is better than knowing  
Yet having no means of acting on it—  
And the more I know, the worse  
It feels to have no control.

Deep irony of fate, then,  
That my greatest expertise  
Would prove to be my bane  
For the one I love:  
Bullet wounds, shrapnel wounds,  
Cuts, stabs, bruises and tears,  
Muscle strain, joint strain,  
Distension and dislocation,  
Blood loss, hearing loss,  
Loss of balance both mind and body,  
Sprained backs and burns by degrees,  
Broken bones and broken spirits  
Are facts of existence  
For your line of work,  
For my line of work.  
I take pride in my ability  
To mend and heal, but I fear  
One day you will lose your wings  
In a strange place  
Beyond my reach.

One mistake is too many  
In the lives we both live,  
Revolving as they do  
Around exertions and injuries.

I cannot wait  
Until you are safely in my arms,  
Away from distant conflicts,  
Away from even the slim  
But ever-present chance  
Of airplane accidents.

I cannot wait  
Until you have returned  
Where you belong,  
So that we can make home  
Feel once more  
Like home.


	3. Tallies

Scars are beautiful,  
The poets have told us,  
Though if they knew  
How pained I am  
To touch the lines and starbursts  
Of callused cornices  
Trailing up and down  
Your body,  
Perhaps they would not have said so.

Each mark  
Is a risk once taken,  
A confrontation staring Death  
Deep in his eyes,  
Willing him to flinch.  
A tactile record  
Of the foolishness of courage,  
A chilling tally  
Counting down towards  
The inevitable wound  
That will not heal.  
With each one I know  
You take one more step  
Forwards, facing the end  
And advancing  
Without hesitation,  
Leaving me to wonder if  
You are so focused on your staredown  
You cannot see who you are leaving behind.

All that separates us  
From the other side  
Is one mistake,  
One fatal millimeter  
Left or right,  
Above, below,  
Deeper.  
And what lies beyond  
Should you cross that line,  
Whether out of duty or by chance,  
Is too fearful to contemplate.

Two new scars  
Have joined your tally  
Since we were last here,  
Shorn of all pretense  
In each other’s embrace  
Under merciful moonlight:  
A gouge in the small of your back  
Just above where  
The rebar impaled you  
Three summers back,  
Still pink and tender;  
A bullet graze across your right shoulder  
With jagged margins  
Stapled roughly together,  
Far away but still too close  
To your heart.

Love of my life, can’t you see  
With each mark, I too am wounded  
By your flirtation with danger,  
And the pain you must have felt  
When you received it?  
One day, the tally will be complete,  
And to think I must be ready when it comes  
Though I am not and never will be  
Makes this occasion,  
By all means meant to be happy,  
Just another instance  
Where I cling to you with both arms  
Wrapped around your waist,  
Afraid of what would happen  
If I let you go;  
Just another instance  
Where you must wipe away  
The dampness on my cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next one's an explicit sex poem.


	4. The Sea

Casting aside your uniform,  
You return at last, mind and body,  
From the windswept wastes  
To the dominion of rain  
Holding its night court  
Over our roof  
As we gather together  
Below the pitter-patter  
Of their watery parlance.

How long must you have wandered in the desert,  
Thirsting to touch your face  
To a cold, clear spring  
Offering relief from the crucible  
Melting down human nature  
To its rawest form,  
Unforgiving and uncaring,  
Leaving nothing untouched  
With its vulgar distemper?  
How long have you marched and toiled,  
Dug, stood post,  
Slept, dreamed, planned,  
Waited—  
For this very moment?

I have been so cold without you, my love—  
Please join me, join with me,  
Transmute the fire of solitude  
You have carried from afar  
Into the smouldering burn of pleasure,  
Warm my body from inside out  
In your embrace.  
Quench your iron endurance,  
Temper your steely resolve  
In our intimate joinder,  
Forge our bonds anew  
With the strength of beautiful wanting.

With ease and smoothness  
Our legs intertwine  
Bringing together our torsos,  
Hands, lips,  
Tongues—  
The first turn of the key  
To the lock of my floodgates,  
Sweet tastes made sweeter  
With unspoken promises  
Exchanged between our mouths,  
Soft but boundless power  
In the clasp of our interlaced fingers  
As our hearts march to the same beat—  
First at a trot, then at gallop,  
Tensing our bodies with anticipation.  
The downpour outside likewise clamors  
For the two of us to lose ourselves,  
Leap headlong over the precipice  
Into the trenches  
Of this sea of fecundity.

It would be selfish of me  
To make that dive alone.  
The shallows, too, hold their own gifts  
For those patient enough to find them,  
And inundating ourselves there first  
Better acclimates our bodies  
For passion and pleasure alike—  
The best mistake  
Is still a mistake,  
And pleasure without passion  
Benefits only the baser part  
Of our desires,  
Dampening the flames  
And leaving both of us unsatisfied.

Piece by piece  
We add fuel to the fire,  
Nurse it,  
Nurture it  
With slight movements  
And soft finger-strokes  
Raising goosebumps  
In the evening coolness  
Despite the heat of your body.  
Shifting crisscrossed,  
I focus on our points of contact,  
Letting their sensation radiate  
Across my skin, wondering  
Whether you can feel the same  
Or whether your patchwork of scars  
Limits you from this luxury,  
Guiding my fingers around  
Their callused contours  
Hoping to alleviate your loss—  
And feeling your murmurs gladly  
Reverberate through my mouth  
In primordial satisfaction.

A small part of me  
Derives no small amusement  
At how delicately I am treating you,  
Knowing full well  
What hard mettle you are made of,  
How stern your material  
To have survived intact  
The wounds you have collected;  
A greater part of me  
Feels the greatest urge  
To heal your wounds and make you whole  
No matter how long it takes,  
No matter how determined you are  
To show the world you can bear  
The pain,  
Because your bravery,  
Your affection,  
The joy and steadiness  
You have given my life  
Deserve all the reward  
I can give in return—  
Because I hate the thought  
Of you being in pain,  
Of you having to suffer  
Even for as noble a cause  
As duty—  
Because I love you  
With all my heart and mind,  
With every part of my being.

Feeling foolish  
Is but a small price to pay  
For the sake of love.

These lofty and far-flung thoughts  
Combine with your tender attention  
To make this coital plateau  
A wondrous place  
I never want to leave.  
Please keep me here,  
Keep me prisoner,  
Chain me, tie me down,  
Enslave me in sexual bliss,  
Make me yours.

From head to foot  
I am all pretty curves,  
From my tongue, curled with yours,  
To the sensual arch of my waist,  
And to my toes, curling of their own volition.  
The tension builds with every movement,  
Clenching tighter and tighter  
Until I cannot breathe  
Except in shallow gasps  
Timed with the troughs of our undulations,  
Waves of sensation crashing and pulsing  
Through me with enough force  
To topple mountains,  
Stripping away my self control,  
Piece by piece.

With what little remains  
I keep holding on,  
Wanting to stay,  
Wanting you  
To take your fill  
And gain your own satisfaction.

The warmth of deluge  
Submerges the room,  
Leaving me sinking  
Deeper and deeper.

How foolish the games we all play  
Knowing the outcome  
Will be the same regardless,  
Knowing how it will all end?  
With your deft touch  
No lock of mine is secure  
Whether by key or combination—  
My unconditional surrender  
Is only a matter of time  
At the attention of your skillful fingers,  
An intrusion  
More than welcome  
Because you know well  
The true worth  
Of the treasure within.

The second turn of the key  
Is almost complete.  
I don’t mind.  
I don’t mind because  
I know, I too,  
Hold the keys to doorways  
And skill enough to penetrate  
Your intimate spaces—  
Which is what I will do  
To repay your gentle thievery,  
Yes.

The floodgates come undone, and I am gasping. For air, for you, for this overwhelming sensation. I am drowning, drowning. Dying. Dying, insensate to the outside world except how you touch me, how you kiss me. How you tremble with me in my arms, how your grunts resonate with mine. How sweet your taste on my tongue, sweet enough to revitalize me, breathe new life into me. Revive me, renew me. Liberate me, liberate my spirit from the oppressive quietude that ensnared me in your absence. Liberate me only to take my body for your pleasure, enslave me by my own consent. Love me. Love me, loved me, and will love me.

And I will do the same.


	5. Masque

The phone rings,  
And ill premonitions  
Creep into my senses  
At the strangeness of digits  
Displayed on its screen.

I answer,  
And though the words from the other side  
Cannot be clearer,  
I do not understand  
Because I can’t bear to.

I should have expected this moment,  
Known long ago it would come,  
A time of wings severed  
Preceding the precipitous fall  
From foolhardy glory,  
Burning thunderous through the air  
To shatter upon the earth,  
Brought down low  
To mingle with the dirt,  
Half-buried and lingering,  
Teetering, on the edge of life.

It is all happening  
So far away—  
I cannot reach you,  
Mend everything that has been broken,  
Set right what went wrong.  
To be oceans apart  
With nothing I could possibly do  
To make things better,  
Nothing that can be done  
To make you whole once more  
Even if you were close by—  
The thought pains me  
Like nothing I have ever felt,  
All intense emotions  
Beyond the compassion  
For the suffering patients  
Whose welfare I have cared for—  
Each movement now  
Is a centesis needle  
Piercing my heart.

I am holding together.  
I am holding together  
Because nothing is solved  
If I fall apart;  
Because there are people  
Whose lives depend  
On my good judgment;  
Because lack of composure  
When my patients and their relatives  
Need reassurance the most  
Would sap their confidence in me  
And everyone I work with;  
Because you will need me  
When you return here,  
Less, but still whole.  
I need to stay strong  
For their sake, for your sake,  
For my sake.

When? If?  
If not?  
No.  
Not if.  
When.

I must still believe  
You will return to me whole,  
Vagaries and ravages of battle  
Leaving you battered  
But not broken.

Yet knowing just enough  
To not know the plausible outcomes,  
To not be able to hold  
Grounded hopes  
In my wish for you to be well,  
Fills my head with unrealistic desires  
Colliding with thoughts of the worst possibilities,  
Compressing turmoil pressurized  
Against the tranquil facade  
Of my porcelain masque,  
Pleasant, detached,  
Waiting.  
Waiting for the moment  
When I see the big picture,  
When my loftiest hopes are crushed  
And my worst fears realized,  
When the walls collapse  
And I am left to the cruel mercy  
Of the howling cold winds  
Without anyone to shield me,  
With no fire to keep me warm.  
No arms to embrace me,  
No hands to take off the weight  
Pulling down my shoulders,  
No voice to assuage  
My runaway thoughts.  
No midnight caresses  
Shivering hot in our exchange,  
No common ease  
Of lazy Sunday afternoons,  
No shared showers,  
No shared bands to add to our fingers,  
No play-pretend arguments,  
No stories told  
Of long-ago follies,  
One house, one bed,  
One me,  
All on my lonesome.

No.

I must stay strong.  
I must not fall apart,  
Not now.  
People are depending on me.

But how long will my unknowing hopes  
Remain standing in the face  
Of my ever-turning cognitive gears?  
Vaguely wishing people well  
Has never been my strong suit,  
And for the ones I love  
Doing so feels like a betrayal.  
Please forgive me  
For such a trite and meager gift;  
I am ashamed  
I cannot offer you more,  
The one who steadies my course  
In the storm of life,  
Far calmer than my over-thinking,  
Endlessly worrying self.

It would be foolish to think  
You would ever lose  
That steady strength  
By which you carry on  
And pull me out of my dark moods  
When my mind moves too far ahead  
Into pessimistic speculation.  
And for my part, I should do my best  
To not let such things overwhelm me  
While you are away.

I know you will overcome  
Whatever sudden changes  
This turn of events has inflicted;  
And in that faith I will continue on.


	6. Tableau

The ward door closes behind me,  
Leaving me alone  
With the solitary beeping  
Of the cardiac monitor,  
The high-strung lines  
Of IVs and breathing tubes  
Forming their impersonal,  
Intrusive panoply  
Over your unconscious form.

Seeing you now,  
I cannot help but imagine  
The pain and horror  
Of that crimson second,  
Sights and sensations  
Vicious with sharp agony,  
Stinging unnatural  
As you fade into shock.

I walk closer to your bedside,  
But my sentiments dare not approach,  
Not yet capable of accepting  
The cruel tableau of your broken body  
Laid out before my eyes.  
Instead, I take refuge behind  
The distance the physician must keep,  
Calm and analytical,  
Visualizing tourniquets and tie-offs,  
The fast steady hands of surgeons  
Amputating, cauterizing,  
Making whole by cutting apart  
Where wholeness cannot be kept.

I am no stranger to these tools  
Nor the machines and instruments  
Grounding and binding your being  
To life, the steady rhythm of stability.  
Likewise acclimated are my senses  
For calm diagnosis—  
Seeing in me a fellow professional,  
The attending physician delivered me  
His detailed assessment,  
And as I glance between his words  
And your battered body,  
My logic concurs, still hiding  
The emotions I am not ready for  
Behind the veil of familiarity.

Maybe that is why  
I dare not let my eyes fall  
Upon your face.

Wandering back towards  
The dancing green line  
On your bedside monitor,  
I churn my thoughts over  
Its rhythm and numbers,  
Hoping to stay away  
But knowing deep inside  
I’m merely stalling.

I’m not enough of a hero  
To stare unflinching  
At my inner fears  
Unfolding in front of me,  
Bring myself face to face  
With the aftermath  
Of devastation  
With no hesitation.

But I’m not enough of a coward  
To have traveled a thousand leagues  
To see you here, make sure for myself  
That you will pull through this,  
Only to turn away  
Because I can’t stand to see you  
Laid low and vulnerable.

Life waits for no one.  
When you want it to the most  
Is when it waits the least.

Hearing your head shifting  
I cannot help but look, and pause  
As I take in your jawline and cheekbones,  
The faint paleness of your skin.  
I imagine then how your eyes will look  
When you wake, warm dark brown  
Dulled with the unfocused cast  
Of analgesia,  
And beyond that narcosis  
The ghost pains of phantom appendages,  
Unending frustration glinting  
In the exertion of rehabilitation,  
The inhuman effort of learning  
How to use inhuman limbs.

And through it all,  
The dark sensation  
That you are now less,  
That the infinite potential  
And exhilaration of the sky  
Has been torn away,  
Never to return.

No more time now  
For my solitary masquerade,  
The artifice, the concealment,  
The folly.

Sinking to my knees,  
I drape one arm over your chest,  
My other hand clutching  
The bedsheets where your own hand  
Would be,  
Face buried deep in linen  
As the burning sensation  
I held inside my eyes  
Finally spill forth.


	7. Drought

All around us,  
The debris of what once was  
Accumulates, every moment  
Ready to bury and take us under—  
And I fear you have already gone below.

Ever since you returned to me  
There’s been an insurmountable distance  
Growing in the place of our physical separation,  
A gap uncrossable by land, sea,  
Or air, setting you apart  
Even from the people you love,  
Hanging over words left unspoken  
Like summer heat lingering  
Even after the sun sets,  
A draining haze distorting  
Everything you survey,  
Leaching nourishing moisture  
From earth and sky alike,  
Bringing forth a merciless drought  
To ravage our homestead.

The fruits of love’s labor  
Wither in this harshness,  
And so crumble too  
The untidy furrows we plowed  
Across the soils of our souls,  
Once joined in hopes of fertility,  
But now blowing away with summer gales  
In the brown pallor of dust-storms  
Presaging a terrible, wrathful vintage,  
One which I fear you will drain  
Heedless of reckoning.

Unsettled and unsettling  
Lie the liquor bottles  
All around our house,  
And I think hard to recall  
The last time I saw you sober.

Rehabilitation appointments  
Have come and gone unanswered,  
Lying now in the wayside  
Like hulked and abandoned tractors  
Sat to gather dust and dry rot,  
Unmoving, corroding,  
Crumbling.

The wellspring of my affection  
Still runs and always will,  
But I can feel the waters turning bitter  
In the callousness of the season,  
Soured at each act of abandonment  
Dotting the landscape  
With hollowed glass pillars.

I cannot bear to see you  
Wallow forever  
In this sorry state of being:  
You are still toying with Death,  
Except this time  
Instead of daring him to flinch  
You have closed your eyes preemptively,  
Caring not whether he will claim you,  
Even welcoming his approach.

I can’t help now but to question  
If you are still the same person  
Who stood in that summer rain  
Under my window;  
Though you still wear  
The rings we exchanged with our passions  
They have lost their glow of luxury,  
The fire of daring burning not  
Where once it roared.

I ask of you now  
To remember that woman,  
Standing apart, then together with me  
Under the deluge,  
To remember who you were,  
Who you still are.

I promised to give you my all,  
And I will still abide  
Even if all I can give you right now  
Is sternness;  
I promised to mend your wounds  
Even if all I can heal  
Are the wounds you bear inside.  
I will not give up faith,  
And I won’t let you give up on me,  
On the seeds of love  
We sowed in consecrated tillage  
Sanctified by our labors.

Please take my hand,  
Take the first steps  
Away from this cycle of self-destruction  
Towards finding again the will to go on,  
Stronger despite the setbacks;  
Please take my hand,  
So that we can walk together  
Towards recovery.


	8. The Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pharah's POV.

Persistence measures itself  
In the days, the minutes,  
The steps I take  
Inch by laborious inch  
Towards the end of the room,  
The end of the hallway,  
The end of the block,  
The end of the street.  
Each step is an almighty effort,  
And more than once  
I have fallen down, cursing  
These prosthetics, more a burden  
Than the support they are meant to be.  
But every time I fell  
I got back up on my own,  
Shifting and willing my burdens  
Into becoming supports,  
Points of leverage to move  
Myself beyond my limitations—  
Even if you’ve fallen down,  
You’re not fallen  
Until the day you can’t get back up.

I’m ashamed to admit  
I came very close to that point  
Just scant months ago,  
Seeing nothing in my future  
But cumbersome crutches and wheelchairs,  
Forgetting myself,  
Forgetting even your unwavering presence,  
Your steadfast commitment  
To the relationship we’ve built together—  
I’m ashamed also  
Of how close I came to abandoning  
Such a priceless treasure,  
And you, the jewel of its centerpiece.

Forgotten also were  
The lessons of Bader and Maresyev,  
Because they were never quite as meaningful  
Before my amputations—  
The sky is not lost  
As long as you hold your gaze  
Towards it still.

It was in my forgetfulness  
That I crawled, head bowed,  
Into the bottle, intending  
Never to come back out,  
Living in a haze forever  
Until I forgot everything else.

It’s interesting to think  
How between the two of us  
You shed far more tears,  
But in the darkest moments  
It is you who is the stronger:  
Swimming against the tides,  
Climbing the sheer cliffs of walls  
I built around my island of desolation,  
You reached in and offered a hand,  
Extending it even after  
I slapped it away in my forgetfulness,  
My foolishness,  
Meeting me again gentle, undeniable,  
An angel in your merciful empathy  
And loving devotion, in full command  
Of understanding and kindness  
Even in the face of the black bear  
Of my depression,  
Carrying me away from that wretched place  
Despite my troubles weighing you down.

In honor of your faith,  
The hope you held onto and shared  
When I’d lost mine,  
I will press onwards,  
Stand again no matter how many times  
I may fall, taller, straighter  
Than ever before,  
Ascend through drafts and turbulence  
To the graceful sanctity  
Of the sunlit silence above,  
Soaring fiercely free—  
This I promise you  
With the whole of my being.

Thank you for being there for me,  
Even when I could not be there  
For myself.

Thank also destiny for entwining  
The threads of our fate,  
Once joined, once frayed,  
But by the grace of all that is  
Never to be parted.

I love you.  
I love you, and will love you still  
Until the very end.


End file.
